Student filmmaker could win $1,000 for PCHS

Park City High School senior Lea Guillory was among 120 contestants to submit a one-minute video to the Zions Bank "Magic of Savings" video contest. Guillory’s video

called "Every Last Penny," has been selected as a finalist among seven other Utah middle and high school students. The winner will receive a $1,000 cash prize along with a $1,000 matching donation to the student’s school.

"We’re excited to make the finals. It was a lot of work, so it would be nice to feel like its worth it, but even if not it was still fun," Guillory said, adding the group will split the money if they win the contest.

"To me it’s not about the money, it’s that the video is that good and it’s the feeling you get, not the money," she said.

Guillory and her friends Colter Merritt, Ali Mitchell and Kalya Guillory spent two 12-hour days working on the stop-motion animation, which includes images of dollars and coins and linked together in a series to make the objects appear to move. She said they took more than 6,000 photos and used about 5,000 for the video.

The project was time consuming and tedious, said Kayla Guillory, adding that they spent the majority of the time moving coins just centimeters to create the slideshow.

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"When you see it put together it’s like ‘whoa’ that looks really cool," Kayla said. "After you’re done you know it all paid off."

Lea Guillory said she’s always been interested in film and photography and she hopes to attend school in New York in the fall to pursue her passions.

Second and third-place contestants will receive $500 and $250 respectively from Zions plus matching awards for their schools. To vote for Guillory’s video visit the Zions Bank "Magic of Savings" Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/zionsbank . Voting closes March 30 and winners will be announced the week of April 2.